Building Social Capital in Social Work Education: A Strategy for Curriculum Development
This study seeks to examine the relationship between social capital and curriculum development in social work education. It is hypothesized that building social capital among social work educators will lead toward curriculum development. Social capital is defined here as the web of social relations, which contains resources available to an individual or a group, resources that can be accessed/utilized to enhance aging content curricula (Bourdieu, 1986; Coleman, 1988; Foley & Edwards, 1997; Portes, 1998; Lin, 2001). To illustrate the value of relationships on curriculum development, the current study takes the Council on Social Work Education/Strengthening Aging and Gerontology Education for Social Work project as a case in point. The question of this study is two fold: 1)To want extend does the participation in SAGE project builds social capital among social work faculty? 2) To what extend does the development of social capital lead to enhancement of curriculum development? H1. a)The level of the participation in the interactive processes within SAGE-SW builds social capital among social work educators; b) The longer the period of time the faculty participate in the project, the greater the social capital is. H2. Controlling for size, setting, auspices of the school, level, and number of gerontology faculty, higher levels of social capital within SAGE project will generate a higher level of infusion of aging content curricula. How does SAGE-SW generate social capital? How does social capital influence the extent of infusing aging curricula? A cross-sectional, sequential mixed-method design will be used(Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). Data will be collected from surveying 100 social work educators and interviewing 20 faculty. The major hypotheses will be tested by using correlation and multiple regression analysis. Qualitative data will be analyzed utilizing ATLAS.TI. This study contributes to the field of social work education in the area of concept testing and application, and in the area of curriculum development. In other words, the study highlights the value and the power of human relations, as defined by the social capital concept, in curriculum innovation and development in social work education.